Index In Brief

John Sharkey, executive vicepresident of European operations for leading venue operator ASM Global, announces his departure from the company after seven years.

Governments in Denmark and Norway start organising large-scale test events to determine how large gatherings can take place during the pandemic.

Fieldlab Evenementen reveals the findings from three months’ worth of pilot events in the Netherlands.

announces a physical, non-socially distanced event in London this September, complemented by an online pass for delegates who are unable to travel.

Luxembourg’s Rockhal scales up its pilot concerts from 100 to 600 people per night, as part of the Because Music Matters initiative.

welcomes spectators for the first time in over a year for a series of tests. Laneway Festival, the much-loved Australasian touring festival, joins the TEG family.

WME parent company Endeavor posts a small profit of $2.4million (€2m) in the first quarter of 2021.

Hearby launches gig guide that will cover 36+ UK cities.

Live Nation appoints Nicole Portwood to the newly created role of chief brand officer.

UAE announces it will require proof of vaccination for live events.

Jazzopen Stuttgart is on track to welcome more than 30,000 fans to open-air venues across the German city this September.

Dutch music venues are permitted to reopen from 5 June, when the country enters step three of the government’s reopening plan.

Belgian live entertainment giant Sportpaleis Group is given the green light to open its pop-up arena in the coastal area of Middelkerke this July.

Chinese post-punk band Re-TROS make history with the biggest rock show in China since the beginning of 2020.

Finnish metal band Nightwish are joined by more than 150,000 fans from 108 countries for their virtual concert experience.

Promoters buy into Oz ticket marketplace Tixel.

Paris’s Accor Arena hosts 5,000 people with no social distancing for Ambition Live Again.

A number of music businesses and associations mark the oneyear anniversary of the Blackout Tuesday/#TheShowMustBePaused campaign.

Austrian promoters and festival organisers prepare to relaunch activities in July. The South African Roadies Association hits out at the loose regulations governing live event production in South Africa.

An American inventor patents a new thermometer design he says will allow the taking of temperature readings without physical contact at live events.

UK promoter Magnitude Live launches. Poland’s Fest Festival is given permission to go ahead as planned, without any capacity limits, provided that attendees have had their Covid-19 vaccinations.

Belgium gives green light for 75,000-capacity open-air festivals.

Sky Festivals, the largest festival owner in Norway, acquires Stavernfestivalen.

Barcelona-based TiketBlok says it has developed an app that makes it possible to identify everyone who attends a major event through their mobile phones.

Plans are underway for a summer concert for 60,000 people in New York’s Central Park.

Israel’s successful Covid-19 vaccination programme allows event organisers in the country to operate as they did back in 2019.

The UK’s live entertainment community holds its breath for the government’s long-awaited 14 June Covid briefing.

French live music associations initiate a push for their members to be allowed to reopen at full capacity.

Employers’ association WNP and trade body VSCD join forces ahead of live music’s return to the Netherlands. Tixxy, the start-up predictive concert recommendation service, expands its team with three new members of staff. Sławomir Worach is named as the new chairman of MAKiS, which operates both the Widzew Stadium and the Atlas Arena, in Łódź, Poland. Research by LIVE reveals even a four-week delay would cause £500m (€585m) of economic devastation to venues, festivals, and touring companies in the UK. Sir Elton John calls on the British government to take advantage of the current window of opportunity to solve the Brexit crisis facing emerging artists. Female urinals are developed to eliminate festival queues. Verbraucherzentrale NRW (the Consumer Advice Centre of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany), brings legal action against CTS Eventim. The British government confirms that live entertainment businesses will have to endure another month of closure. Goodlive Artists, the booking and touring division of Berlin-based Goodlive, launches Goodlive Artists Austria in Vienna. Metallica sue Lloyd’s of London over postponed tour losses.

Two months out, the 2021 edition of Tomorrowland has finally been called off, after ministers failed to convince the local town mayors to allow it to go ahead. GET INVOLVED

Despite a last-minute plea from the prime Want to share your views minister of Flanders, the mayors of the towns on breaking industry news? of Boom and Rumst, where the 70,000-capacity Then get involved in the festival has taken place since 2005, are unmoved discussion on Twitter: in their decision not to grant Tomorrowland a @iq_mag permit to go ahead, citing concerns about the safety of local residents. Although the Belgian government has SUBSCRIBE cleared 75,000-capacity festivals from 13 August An annual subscription to IQ is 2021, Tomorrowland – which was scheduled for £75 (electronic). 27-29 August and 3-5 September – sadly con- info@iq-mag.net firmed that mayors Jeroen Baert (Boom) and Jurgen Callaerts (Rumst) had decreed that the event, the world’s largest dance music festival, would not be allowed to go ahead this summer.

While Flemish minister of the interior and society Bart Somers said on 24 June that Tomor-

TOMORROWLAND NEVER COMES MVT HONOURS rowland would not have to pay back in full the FRANK TURNER €1.8million aid it received from the Flemish government earlier this year, the cancellation still MVT principals Mark Davyd and leaves the festival in financial trouble, according Beverley Whitrick presented Frank to a spokesperson. Turner with Outstanding “[It] is a lot of money and we are very happy with the support, but it is a drop in the ocean,” Debby Wilmsen tells The Brussels Times, adding Achievement for Grassroots Music Venues Award 2020 atop the O2 arena in London that the festival has already cancelled orders worth €50m. “We were starting up already,” she explains. “The main stage was finished, we had to pay the advances for ordering materials, the delivery of the wristbands had been ordered, 140 people were working full-time to make the festival, artists were booked… Organising a festival like Tomorrowland costs a lot of money, and a lot of things have to be paid in advance.” The cancellation of the festival leaves Pukkelpop (19–22 August) as the last remaining major music festival in Flanders in 2021.

Attitude is Everything publishes a ten-point ‘live music checklist’ to help ensure deaf, disabled and neurodivergent fans are made welcome. Live events will be permitted at full capacity in the Netherlands and Denmark. TicketSwap raises $10m (€8.4m) in its first funding round. Magazine 9

Danny Wimmer Presents acquires Billy Alan Productions, a leading booker of talent for Native American-run casinos. UK festivals including Black Deer in Kent are forced to call off their 2021 events at the last minute after the government U-turn. Former APA staffers, Steve Martin and Andy Somers, launch Paladin Artists in the UK and the US. DEAG’s Kilimanjaro announces acquisition of promoter UK Live. ASM Global expands partnership with Ticketmaster. UK government is savaged in parliament over Brexit ‘no deal’ for music. Scientific data from pilot concerts in five European countries, most recently Belgium, demonstrate that live events do not accelerate infection. A new series of pilot events in Germany aims to convince authorities to allow open-air raves, following the success of earlier test shows. Irish concert businesses receive €25m in summer funding. UTA signs Grammy-nominated artist Demi Lovato for worldwide representation in all areas. Germany’s LEA honours the biggest and best events of 2019. Spain’s Mallorca Live will hold a pilot concert later this month using the local health passport to do away with social distancing. Tour manager and health and wellbeing specialist Suzi Green commissions a series of resilience workshops for the international live music industry. The first Manchester Arena Inquiry report identifies several missed opportunities it claims could have lessened the impact of the attack. Indian ticketing giant BookMyShow lays off another 200 employees as coronavirus restrictions continue to hurt demand for live entertainment and cinema. Serbia’s Exit festival will launch a new open-air event, Sunland, in Bulgaria next month. Casey Wasserman says his company’s experience in working with brands will be the number one opportunity for its many new artist clients.

UK industry bodies write to the prime minister regarding what they describe as crippling staff shortages across large parts of the UK economy. The O2 is set to become the first real-world arena to get its own venue in Fortnite. Seven people, including five police officers, are injured on Friday night as police break up A s live music prepares to get back to business, industry bodies in the UK, the Netherlands, France and elsewhere have sounded the alarm over the impending labour shortage. UK industry bodies including LIVE (Live music Industries Venues and Entertainment), the Concert Promoters Association, the Events an illegal rave in Brittany. Tomorrowland 2021 hangs in the balance after local authorities decree the dance music festival would not be allowed to go ahead. Download Pilot – the UK’s first major camping festival of its kind since lockdown – is hailed Industry Forum and the UK Crowd Management a resounding success. Association have written to the prime minister regarding what they describe as crippling staff Joss Stone signs with ICM shortages across large parts of the UK economy. Partners for worldwide

The live entertainment and events associa- representation. tions are joined by trade bodies representing other sectors, including hospitality, food and Facebook will not charge a fee drink and retail, in calling for government ac- to content creators for at least tion to help remediate the situation, with the let- the next two years, CEO Mark ter suggesting that EU workers could be allowed Zuckerberg announces. to return on a short-term basis to help fill the empty roles.

“While the overall picture is complex, one short-term solution with immediate benefit would be to temporarily ease immigration requirements for the large numbers of workers, par Magazine 11

ticularly from the EU, who have returned to their homelands during the lockdowns. This has contributed greatly to the shortfalls,” reads the letter.

“A relaxation of the rules does not need to be open ended but it needs to happen quickly if we are to support the recovery of the UK economy.”

The letter comes as entertainment and hospitality businesses in other countries also claim they are facing a staff shortage as they begin to reopen this summer.

In the Netherlands, live music association VNPF is warning that the industry will likely be short of staff when full-capacity shows restart later this year, with many professionals having left the industry over the past 16 months.

Both venues and festivals are short of people, VNPF director Berend Schans tells NU.nl, with the former sector having laid off an average of 20% of their staff last year and the latter probably even more. “Exact figures are lacking, but because that industry [festivals] has been hit even harder than venues, and they have received relatively less government support, I would say that the situation there is even more serious, especially in view of the lay-offs at Mojo Concerts

INDUSTRY FACES STAFF SHORTAGES and ID&T, for example.” Similarly, France, the United States and New Zealand are all facing post-pandemic labour shortages, particularly in the hospitality sector, and while the issue has been exacerbated by Brexit in the UK, experts have been warning of shortages for months. The UK Door Security Association (UKDSA) said back in March that venues and clubs could face trouble reopening as planned following an exodus of security staff during the pandemic. In addition to EU workers who have gone home, many qualified door staff were forced to find work elsewhere when venues were closed in March 2020. According to the Security Industry Authority (SIA), over a quarter of the UK’s total security workforce were non-UK nationals in 2018. The UKDSA estimates that over half of the vacancies in the sector may be left unfilled when business restarts gets back to normal later this summer. “This will need a government intervention to ensure that the industry has the ability to provide enough staff,” says Michael Kill, CEO of the Night Time Industries Association. Concerning new elements in the SIA door supervisor licence which require more training for door staff, Kill adds: Thousands of “While the training is welcomed, it is not timely professionals read given the current economic situation across most IQ every day. Make of the sector, and consideration needs to be given sure you get the to it being pushed back to 2022.” whole picture…